Cooking Confidential

Sunday, October 26, 2008

I love Trader Joe's. The products are high quality and natural, and the prices are excellent. Mostly though, I love the food samples that they have at the back of the store. I've found so many great items that I might never have tried if I hadn't had a sample first. The latest (and maybe greatest) is Island Soyaki.

As the name suggests, it's part soy sauce and part teriyaki. This is a case were the whole is better than the sum of the parts. It's brighter than soy or teriaki. There's a hint of the spiciness of ginger and the tang of pineapple, and the sesame seeds add an earthiness.

These cookies came about as a result of two of my favorite food blogs. They originate at the Smitten Kitchen blog (and if you aren't familiar with this site, go now--it's gorgeous). Adam at The Amateur Gourmet "assigned" readers to make them. What can I say, I've always been a good student.

The cookies are deliciously unique. The sea salt adds a salty rush to the sweetness. I have to admit that I'm not a huge fan of white chocolate. It's just too sweet for me. The salt on top of the cookies cuts the sweet in a great way.

I followed the recipe exactly. My only minor criticism is that her estimation to create balls of two tablespoons created really large cookies. I would cut back a little to make smaller cookies. Even making large ones, this recipe made 40 cookies for me. I think the recipe is really for 4 dozen cookies.

Sunday, October 19, 2008

I made these cheese puffs (or if you are fancy and french, Cheese Gougères) on the fly as a Sunday afternoon snack. Mostly, I just wanted to see if I could.

Despite how fancy smancy they sound and look, they were actually very simple and easy. I followed the recipe I found here: Cheese Puffs

I'm not a baker, at all. That role falls to my husband, but he tends to bake breads and bagels (mmm...bagels) rather than cakes and cupcakes. All of this is a long way of saying that we do not have a pastry bag. So, I used a gallon freezer bag and cut the tip off. It took some practice to get the puffs ball-shaped and I made a decent-sized mess, but it worked. Also, I did use my Kitchenaid, but I think this would work fine with a hand mixer.

These are light, cheesy and perfectly salty. They would make a great appetizer for a cocktail party.